


Facts and Theories

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: e033 Cassette, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: After the tapes, Cecil is very much not okay.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945483
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Facts and Theories

Carlos didn’t wait until Cecil said his goodbyes before he was in the car and on his way. The moment he’d heard him trying to rip the tape apart had been the same he shook his head, got his coat and went out. Alone the thought Cecil could sit alone in his booth, panicking over this, asking questions he maybe shouldn’t, made his own heart race. Even the thought he could be as alone as he was in these tapes in a situation where he should not be alone, made it ache. He couldn’t take it, wouldn’t risk it. The program was still on in the car, but he kept his eyes on the road and his heart forcefully quiet. It was all he  _ could _ do, logically. If he was too distracted, he wouldn’t arrive, if he wouldn’t arrive, he’d be no good to Cecil. It was a string of theoretical events to follow, a string of possibilities he could either take or reject. The best course of action left him here, in his car, on his way to the station, arriving there after the broadcast had ended. There was a heavy feeling in his stomach - he knew what he had heard. A young Cecil getting… what? Killed? The possibility was there, but that would have left him dead, not here, that would mean he died then and there, so he rejected the option as a theory that couldn’t work. Could not be true. Who could have manipulated the tapes? A possibility, but likely a dead end. The sheriff’s secret police had no reason - they didn’t have one for anything, but still, he couldn’t quite imagine that. Night Vale was a strange and weird place full of strange- and weirdness, but usually not like this. Not games like this, and he couldn’t call it other than that. He put the theories of what exactly happened on hold for the moment. 

Carlos nearly stumbled over the box with the smashed tapes when he entered the booth. Cecil had either shoved or kicked it away from him and was now sitting on the floor, leaned on the desk. His eyes were closed and Carlos could hear his panicked breathing across the room. Careful, as to not startle him, he came closer and kneeled down in front of him, still a short distance away, hands up. He knew what a panic attack looked like. And he knew from his own experience that just hugging a person simply wouldn’t do, that touch could increase the panic and he didn’t want to scare him more than he already was. 

“Honey?” He used the word for a reason, since Carlos was the only one calling him ‘honey’ and he hoped it would get through rather than Cecil. Everyone said that, so everyone could be here, but he needed him to know it was Carlos and nobody else. He gave him a moment for an answer and when none came and he showed no reaction at all, just settled down and let his hands sink to his lap to wait before he talked again, trying to gently coax him back to reality from wherever he was now. Mundane stories about his day, nothing important, just to talk, to fill the silence so maybe, hopefully, Cecil would find his way back to him. Because for Carlos, it was the worst to see him like this. His usual so relaxed posture tense, purple eyes squeezed shut and fine hands gripping the fabric of his trousers tightly. He saw a cut over the back of his right hand and a few more scratches, likely from smashing the cassettes and their sharp plastic edges. His breathing picked up and slowed down in irregular intervals, and Carlos wished, wished so desperately that there was something he could do, but knew he couldn’t. Just wait, be here. Talk. He could talk, the same way they talked to each other after nightmares or a bad day. It was well established at this point, so well that he hoped it could work.   
“...and then I broke the glass, accidentally. It’s funny, you know, because we have a lot of broken glasses and mugs in the lab. Most are at least cracked, and I don’t know if you’ve seen the sign over the microwave when you were there the last time, that there is no science allowed in it anymore?” He nearly missed when Cecil shook his head

“Then you have to see it, at first I thought they made it for me, you know” Cecil blinked. His eyes were wet and it took a moment until he focused on Carlos, but he looked at him. 

“Hey, are you back with me?” A shrug. He didn’t know yet. He was still breathing too fast, and Carlos held up his hands again, “Can I touch you? Take your hand?” Cecil took a moment to answer and then nodded, and Carlos carefully pried his cold fingers loose from his trousers, one hand, the other, and held them in his. Cecil leaned his head back against the desk with an audible thud. 

“I am a monster, I should not be alive and if I died and am still alive and not a ghost I-” his breath hitched and Carlos shook his head and squeezed his hands gently, 

“You are not a monster,” He said quietly. Like this he could see scratch marks around his neck, as if he had clawed at his throat. Of course, if the other him had been choked to death. He probably felt hands when there were none, “You are alive and with me, okay? In the radio station-”   
  
“I am! And I don’t know how you can be here with me when I am a mo-”    
  
“Cecil!” Carlos took him by the shoulders to make him look at him, he could see him spiraling downwards and he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t let him, not when he was already panicking this much and not when he said something like this, “You are  _ not _ a monster!” He took his hand again and pressed it to his chest, his own over it, “And you didn’t die, you have a heartbeat, do you hear it? It’s too fast because you’re panicking, so please, listen to me” He kept one hand over Cecil’s and the other too, just pressing it to his own chest, his own heartbeat, which was only slightly aggravated. Took exaggerated calm breaths for him to follow until he felt him doing it,    
“You’re doing great. Nobody is hurting you. You can breathe. We are in your studio, in the radio station. Nothing is going to hurt you, and I am here” Cecil stared at his hand and took another slow breath.    
  
“Carlos-” His voice hitched and shoulders shook, and Carlos stroked his thumb over his knuckles.   
  
“Yes, I’m right here. Breathe, honey. We can and will talk about it, but for now, just breathe for me” He didn’t answer and Carlos just smiled at him. It didn’t stop the tears, on the contrary, but calmed him down enough that his heart stopped racing like crazy and he could get out more than one word without gasping in between. 

“I’m sorry” he mumbled then and let his head fall forward. Carlos shook his head, even if Cecil couldn’t see it.

“There is no need for that. Those tapes were extremely unsettling, and you have all the right to be upset. You don’t have to be fine right now. But you will be, and you are alive” He pressed a kiss to his head. 

“But what happened then?” Carlos carefully put his arm around his shoulders to hold, but not trap him. This was the moment he picked his theories up again. 

“I don’t know. I thought about it, and if you want, I can run some tests with the tapes,” he looked over to the box on the floor away from them, “or their remains. Maybe someone manipulated them, I just do not know who yet. But we can find out, and we build all the theories you want. But some things are not theory, they are facts, you know? Constants you can count on, you can always count on. That always stay” he couldn’t explain it properly since some of them actually stopped working in Night Vale and others kept changing between two numbers every Wednesday and therefore couldn’t be called constant anymore.    
  
“Nothing really does” Cecil sniffed beside him, and Carlos was not having it. Theories and Facts were not only his job, they were part of who he was, a big part. One of the reasons he fell in love with Cecil and one of the reasons he wouldn’t let him go, one of the reasons he jumped into his car and nearly ran over Janine on his way out.    
  
“Oh, that is wrong. It’s not a theory, but a fact, that you are alive. That you didn’t die then, even if you don’t remember what happened. It is also a fact that you do not have a brother but a sister, a sister and a niece who love you very much” He leaned over to look at him more closely. Cecil’s purple eyes were almost shining, wet with tears as they were and they usually looked so bright already. A stark contrast to his white eyebrows and hair, “And it’s a fact that dead people don’t cry. Monsters won’t panic about being monsters. And it’s a fact and not a theory that I love you, even with a gap in your memory, even with all the weirdness. I didn’t sign up for anything because that is not what love is” He let his thumbs wander over Cecil’s cheeks to wipe the freshly flowing tears away, “It’s a fact that I love you, and I know what that means. Everything else, all the weirdness? We got each other for that. And I’m here for you, Ceec. And it’s another fact, not a theory, that I won’t leave. Okay?” Cecil didn’t answer at first, or at least not verbally, and Carlos just wrapped his arms around him to pull him closer. He was really crying again, properly sobbing now, but it was still different. Not a broken, panicked sound, and he wasn’t clinging to Carlos as if he was the only lifeline in a sea of fear, but he was hugging him, crying into his shoulder. He carefully stroked his hair, careful to not test his theory that Cecil probably still didn’t want anyone or anything touching his neck. 

“Can we… Can we go home now?” He finally sniffed against his shoulder and Carlos smiled. The worst was over. He could now take him home, put on a movie, or simply just hold him when the catchup of the panic attack sneaked up on him and would likely leave him too tired for anything. 

“Yes, honey, hold on, okay?” Cecil squeaked when he picked him up, 

  
“This was not what I  _ meant _ , Carlos!” But he nuzzled his head in the crook of Carlos’ neck nonetheless and hid his face there. 

“But you still like it” It wasn’t that he couldn’t walk. Or that Carlos suspected that, but it was something else about the tapes that bothered him. A theory from before, but edging closer to a fact when he added how he knew Cecil by now. How he talked about his personal life on the radio. How he talked into his recorder as a child. How his mother and brother just left - Cecil was lonely. Actually, properly lonely. Still was. Crying alone in his booth today, smashing the tapes, when he could have called Carlos. Something he didn’t know. And attention was something he could give - was glad to give. As long as it made sure Cecil knew he was never going to be lonely ever again. No matter what. Fact, not theory. 

  
  



End file.
